


Accepting Help

by 7CuteCreationImagination7



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Whump!Thomas, hurt!Thomas, mother hen Newt, scorch trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 09:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12745473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7CuteCreationImagination7/pseuds/7CuteCreationImagination7
Summary: Set in the first half of Scorch Trials. Slight AU. Thomas has an extra trial set aside for himself. But as his health worsens, and his guilt increases, will he tell his friends before it is too late?





	Accepting Help

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya, this is my first Maze Runner Fic. I love Thomas, and Thomas Whump is like cookies. I looove cookies. I alo added some Mama Newt, some Sassy Minho and I have decided that Thomas is the designated Baby Brother (TM) to Big brothers Newt and Minho. This fits in with my personal headcanon that Thomas is actually 15/16, and everyone else is 17/18 or 18/19. Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy the fic, please review for constructive criticism. God Bless! :)

He lay in the cot, his stomach aching in hunger as the water he had drunk sloshed around, mocking his desire for food.

Night fall was coming, and he was ready to sleep. He had tried to keep himself awake for as log as he could, whether it was a bizarre self-inflicted test of stamina, or a desperate attempt to convince himself that the trials with WICKED were over - he was unsure.

No one else was being as ridiculous as he was, he could hear Winston snoring in the corner, as Minho lay with his head under his pillow.

He tried to wrap his head around everything, he really did. He had to come up with a plan of sorts, because he knew, deep down, that it was his fault that they were in this predicament. Sure the Maze has sucked, but they had had some sort of a routine, and they had had food and water.

Now they had nothing but some stupid tattoos on their necks, and the knowledge that the nightmare wasn’t over, and that they had gender swapped counterparts.

He hadn’t told anyone about his tattoo, he didn’t want to, didn’t need to, and hoped that it would just disappear.

His growling stomach disturbed his melancholic thoughts.  
He decided to succumb to sleep, his eyes were drooping and his body was begging for rest. So, he lay down, his arms trembling, as he pulled up the covers and was enveloped by darkness.

It was not a restful sleep. Nightmares plagued him.

Firstly, he was surrounded by the Grievers, their slimy ,grotesquely mechanical bodies clicking and whirring around him, closing in on him.

Then one spoke, Chuck’s voice came out, his voice angry and desperate as it flowed out of the Griever’s body

“ Why couldn’t ya save me Thomas? Huh? You let my die. You left me there to DIE. I thought I was your friend!”

Then the other Griever, the largest one spoke, a smooth, rich voice furiously beamed out

“ You left me to die to, didn’t ya Greenie? You though it right that I sacrifice my self, so you could lead my friends out to another depth of hell! I hate ya Green, your’e a murderer and a liar!”

Other voices joined in, overlapping as the Grievers came closer and closer. Ben’s enraged shouts, muddles with Gally’s determined accusations, as Chuck’s and Alby’s voices continued to condemn him.

Then it changed, a griever shot out, and … injected him in the neck. He struggled as the condemnations continued, ending with a final unanimous sentence

“ Your’e a murderer Greenie, this is all your fault.”

He shot up, his face sticky with sweat as he struggled to get air into his lungs.   
He heard a strange echo, which sounded like someone screaming. It took him a while to figure out that it was him. He stopped, wiping his face, and lay back down. Not even thinking to ponder the fact that everyone else had slept through his panicked screaming, despite all being in the same room.

The next day he woke up, Newt shaking him and telling him about the food, and the Ratman.  
He happily munched, and stared at the man suspiciously as he stated the next “Trial”.

He couldn’t help but notice that, whilst the man was looking at everyone in turn, he kept on returning to him, staring at him with a look that Thomas couldn’t decipher, as it was a strange mixture of disdain, pity and hope. Thomas would have normally tried to figure out what it meant, but after last night, he was too exhausted to do much else but to listen.

As he guided the Gladers through the FlatTrans he realised just how exhausted he was. He had to keep his eyes from drooping as he sleepily ushered them through, desperately hoping that he was guiding them to safety, and that no more deaths would be on his name.

A quick burst of fear-induced adrenaline gave him the impulse to push through, crashing into others, but after a while, as the walking began, the adrenaline faded.

He walked through the seemingly endless tunnel, his legs feeling like lead, as he felt his shoulders getting heavy. When he watched the silver ball murder his team mates, his heart plummeted to the bottom of his stomach.

More people whom he had lead to their deaths.  
When he finally got outside, he decided that he hated everything.

The blinding sunlight seemed to cook his eyeballs into mush. The dry, chocking sandy air making his lips grow dry and gave him the urge to cough.  
The walking resumed

Later in the night, as everyone went to sleep, Thomas was lividly laying under his sheet.

Everything ached. His joints, his muscles, even his eyebrows seemed to ache, like an invisible force had left invisible bruises inside his body.  
He tried not to think about the fact that these might be the early symptoms of the Flare.  
But to be honest, there really wasn’t anything nice to think about, so he lay there, dozing as his body complained.

At one point he contemplated asking others if they were getting symptoms too.  
But then he remembered that if they did, it was his fault for leading them here. And is they didn’t, then he would be a whiny idiot.

When dawn came, he was careful to cover his face, not only to stop any chance of sunburn, but also to hide the dark bags under his eyes.  
He walked, and walked. He tried to keep at the front with Minho, and was succeeding, but he couldn’t help but realise that something was wrong. 

He was cold.

Minho was red in the face, he could see sweat collecting at the top of his sheet covering. Everyone else was panting, the putrid stench of adolescent sweat permeating the air.

This was not the case for Thomas.

Sure, he was aching, and panting and exhausted, like he supposed everyone else was, but he was absolutely frozen.

It was when he caught himself shivering, whilst Newt announced that they were stopping because more than half the Gladers had the early symptoms of heat stroke, that he realised that something wasn’t quite right.

However, he decided to ignore it. Winston was covered in burns, Aris was surrounded by strangers, one of which he could apparently take to telepathically and everyone else had just had the awful rug which they were standing on ripped from under their feet; so Thomas was not going to complain about feeling a bit rubbish.

Even if he felt like he was about to pass out. But then again, this would probably stop, and it was just a stupid stamina test from the WICKED people, right? It would stop soon…. probably.

When night fell yet again Thomas realised that this wasn’t stopping. 

Firstly, he had gone from feeling like an ice cube, to feeling as if someone was cooking him from the inside out. Whilst everyone was covering themselves with sheets and huddling together, he was ready to jump into a freezing vat of water.

Secondly, he discovered that it was nigh on impossible to hide the fact that his lungs wanted to exit his body. His head ached terribly, the word migraine springing to mind, as he tried to cough quietly, his throat sore as he tried to bury some thick phlegmy mucus into the sand.

Not many people noticed, as he managed to blame his coughs on the sandy air, ( he was teased for being a delicate flower for a full 32 hours), and the sheet covered his head enough that no-one noticed the bags under his eyes, his pale face and his abnormal flushed cheeks.

The horrible cycle of Don’t Sleep, Hide Coughs, Walk with Headache , Shiver , Repeat continued for a couple of days.

It was when it got worse that people noticed.   
The first one to notice was Frypan, strangely, as he had to refuse the offer of food. He was way too nauseous to even contemplating eating, or drinking, even if he had done neither since the dawn.  
Frypan said nothing, but gruffly told him to go to sleep, or he would “shank” him himself.  
If frypan was strangely gentle in waking him up the next day, Thomas said nothing about it, but he decided that he really liked Frypan.  
Nevertheless, not many people noticed anything was wrong until his lungs started being awful.  
He had managed to cough discreetly, and not speak in the hoped that his throat would stop aching, but his breathing didn’t improve.  
He struggled to breathe, every inhalation causing his chest to ache as it wheezed through his thorax.   
When he started coughing, and just couldn’t stop, he was too busy dry heaving mucus to notice the concerned looks that he was receiving from everyone.

He continued walking until nightfall, his chest audibly wheezing, his throat and head aching, as he tried to fight the feeling of dizziness.

He was about to lay down, when Newt grabbed him by the shoulder, and practically lifting him up, he hauled him over to where Minho was sitting.  
He didn’t know what he had done, but Minho looked as if he was about to smash him into the boulder he was leaning on.

Both boys were looking at him, until finally Newt spoke, his quiet, stern voice ringing out through the dusk

“ Tommy, you are a bloody idiot. I hope you know that. Wait— sit down before you pass out.   
I don’t need to tell you that you look like hell, do I? Unless you really think that chicks dig the pale face, flushed cheeks, blue lips and eye bags look, then I suggest that you sit down.”

He sat down, wondering if he could ask them if he could take his sheet off, because he was being roasted alive, but from the stern looks he was receiving, he decided against it.  
Minho then glared at him

“ Look Greenie, the point is, that you can’t even breathe properly, you sound like a dying squirrel, and you look like a Griever ate you and spat you up. And, you don’t come to up, you don’t even ask if we have any med kits, no. You wait until we have Frypan and Aris coming to us telling us that you ain’t sleepin’ ain’t eatin’ much and that all you think about is how this is all your fault. You don’t ask for help, and you end up nearly killing yourself!”

Thomas felt ashamed, he thought he was being discreet about his lack of sleep, and he didn’t realise that he had forgotten to shield himself from Aris. Wonderful, everyone knew that he was a useless idiot, who couldn’t even exist properly.

The sound of a bag opening made Thomas’ eyes flicker, as he saw a box with his name come out.  
A small message was written, in what looked like German on top of a vial.  
It translated to,

“ 1. This should be taken with food, and is a cure for the strengthened version of influenza   
2 . The symptoms will temporarily worsen after ingestion, but provided that it is in the early stages, there should be no cause for medical assistance  
3\. This was a secondary trial which was added to teach subject Thomas to learn to accept help  
4\. This will send the subject to sleep for 18 hours.”

A small “Oh” croaked out of Thomas’ cracked lips.

Newt silently handed him a piece of bread, which was reluctantly swallowed. He was about to ask when he should take the vial, when Minho yanked out the stopper and holding his mouth open, poured it out of his throat.

He was about to protest, or at least show his resent for the lack of consent, when the world turned a fuzzy grey colour. He fell asleep to the sound of Newt saying to Minho

“ That’s only half of the problem solved…”

Thomas decided that he didn’t know where he was, but that he kind of liked it. It was dark, sure, and he kind of couldn’t remember who he was, or what he was, but it was warm and safe and he was very very sleepy.

He felt a soft hand carding through his hair, as a voice floated in,

“ This was stupid Tommy, real stupid. I’m going to kick you when you wake up. Do, ya know how awful it is to watch the guy who is practically my little brother stop breathing. You can’t do this to us Tommy. When you wake up were gonna have a nice long chat about your’e life choices…”

He didn’t really understand, but he quickly fell back asleep after a while.

When he woke up, Thomas decided that he wanted to hug whomever had given him the vial. Then he remembered that that was Minho, and that if he tried to hug Minho, he would probably just be punched.

He turned to see Newt and Aris trying to strike up conversation. They were failing miserably, so Thomas decided that speaking was worth the scolding, just to get rid of the awkward mess they were both in.

“ Uh, hi, where is everyon- owww”

Okay, so the flu symptoms were gone, but it felt like his ribs had been smashed against a wall.  
Newt turned, to see him and frantically began ordering him to lie back down, muttering something about CPR and how he was Not his mum.

Aris just looked at him sadly, as if Thomas had just told him that his puppy was dead.

Newt spoke first, his voice strangely crackly

“ Tommy, don’t you dare do that again. Don’t you dare. I - I think Minho cracked your ribs, and you so deserve it. You nearly died. Your stupid sacrificial, guilt ridden self nearly got itself killed and —“

Aris butted in, his voice quiet, and apologetic

“ I didn’t mean to read your thoughts Tom, I really didn’t. But man, you can be depressing. I had to tell someone. You can’t blame yourself for everything. And it was stupid of you to decide to not tell anyone about your illness because of it.”

Newt finally composed himself enough to say

“ Look, I don’t know where you got the ideas that you couldn’t talk to Minho, or Aris or me but get rid of it. Also, hiding an illness is a ridiculously stupid thing to do, real stupid. And, none o’ this is your fault. None. So stop beating yourself up, and let us help ya, got it?”

Thomas couldn’t do anything but nod. He was surprised when Newt hugged him, but he must have had a bit of the drug left in his veins because he accidentally muttered,   
“ Best big brother ever”,   
making Newt stutter, and then just ruffle his hair.

They began to walk, and Thomas silently sent Aris a message

“ Thank you. I think I might have died otherwise”

When they reached the rest of the group, Minho wrapped his arm around his shoulders and began to thoroughly berate him, Thomas knew that everything would be okay.

Until the storm began…..


End file.
